Trust Fall
by xx paint you wings
Summary: After the eventful callback auditions, Troy and Ryan's shared dressing room leads them to strike up some sort of friendship. Friendship/pre-slash Tryan.


**This was inspired by watching High School Musical with nek0-sama on Livestream earlier, and the conversation that accompanied it. It was originally going to be more focused on the dressing room idea, but the plot kind of went in a different direction. I kind of like how it ended up, though, so here you go.**

* * *

Now that tryouts, callbacks, and all of their associated drama were over, rehearsals for the winter musical had begun. Darbus was working the cast and crew of Twinkle Towne overtime, trying to perfect their blocking and memorization so that they could move on.

Dressing room assignments had been posted, serving as a warning to the cast that they had better have their lines memorized by now, though Troy wasn't really sure why the enthusiastic drama teacher had felt the bulletin board in the middle of the hall was the best place to post the list.

"Troy, man," Chad had announced one morning, "you've gotta be on your toes, okay?"

Troy had just blinked at his friend in confusion. "What are you talking about?" he asked incredulously.

"Those Evanses. They're always up to something. You've gotta watch your back."

The athlete's brows had furrowed. "I don't understand," he had said.

Chad sighed, as if Troy were a particularly slow child. "They must've pulled some strings, or something. You're sharing a dressing room with the poodle, man."

"Ryan has a name," Troy commented defensively. Never mind that they had never had an actual conversation; the basketball player wanted to be sure that the drama club co-president had no reason to be wary - or worse, afraid - of him. "And he's a nice guy. I really don't think he'd do anything."

Chad stared at Troy in disbelief. "Troy, my man, are you sure you didn't twirl a little too much? This is Ryan Evans we're talking about, twin brother of the ice queen herself. Don't you remember what they did before?"

Troy was glaring at his friend now. "Ryan only did that because _you_ gave him a reason to be afraid of us. Now that we've gotten past that-" he punctuated the statement with a hard look "-we're cool. I trust him, why don't you?"

"He's gonna try and break your leg, or something, so he can get the lead role! You know what kind of people those two are," Chad insisted.

Troy rolled his eyes, stepping away from his co-captain. "I do. Do you?" he asked, turning to walk the rest of the way to the auditorium on his own.

When he reached the heavy auditorium doors, he realized that his conversation with Chad had made him late. He rushed through the rows of seats towards the stage, already formulating an excuse in his mind.

"Ah, Mr. Bolton," Ms. Darbus's voice dripped like honey. "So nice of you to finally join us. Now, we are doing a different sort of activity today..."

A blond, hat-wearing head turned to glance at Troy, giving him a sympathetic smile. Troy shrugged in reply, offering a warm grin of his own. Ryan's pale face flushed as he turned back to face the drama teacher.

"...as blossoming thespians, you must become very acquainted with performing alongside one another. There is no such thing as personal stage when one is performing in the theater!" Ms. Darbus made grandiose gestures as she spoke, nearly knocking Kelsi's hat off of her head with an arm.

Troy tried not to snicker as the pianist readjusted her hat, wondering where the eccentric director was going with this.

"The person you will be working the most closely with will most likely be your dressing room partner, your castmate, and for some of you, your understudy." At this, she shot a pointed look at Troy and Ryan before sweeping her gaze to Gabriella and Sharpay. "You must, at the very least, be able to tolerate them. More than that, however, you must trust them."

Sharpay huffed at this, as Gabriella shot Troy an eyeroll of her own.

"Thus, we will be using the tried and true method that most of you would refer to as," she paused for dramatic effect, "the trust fall."

Gabriella's hand shot in the air. "What if they drop us?" she complained, a whine seeping into her tone.

Sharpay snorted. "I wasn't planning on it, frankly, but now that you mention it..."

"This!" Ms. Darbus explained, gesturing to the bickering girls. "This is our problem, and this is exactly why I have selected this exercise. Now, pair up with your dressing roommate, and if I catch any word of dropping each other on purpose, I will eliminate your free time after school until the issue is resolved."

Troy shrugged, making his way over to where Ryan was standing. "You know," the smaller boy began, "I can go first, if you feel uncomfortable with it."

"I don't," Troy promised, "but if you want, you can go first anyway."

Without further discussion, the pair got into position. Ryan allowed himself to fall backwards, just as Troy reached out to catch him before he approached the ground.

"Excellent!" the drama teacher exclaimed, gesturing at the two boys. "This is how the trust fall should be executed!"

Ryan offered a shy grin, face flushed red as Troy helped him get back to his feet. "Are you sure you... trust me?" he asked nervously.

Troy gave him a puzzled look. "Yeah, why wouldn't I?"

"After... you know, what happened before. I promise I won't let you fall," Ryan offered, a nervous smile playing on his lips.

Troy shrugged. "Nah, I wasn't even worried. It's totally cool, man. I know why you thought you had to do it."

Ryan smiled tentatively at the athlete. "Well, you don't have to, you know, if you feel uncomfortable.

Troy got into position. "I totally trust you, Ryan. It's fine."

With that, he let himself fall.


End file.
